Recovering Bion's Contributions to Group Analysis

Bion is clearly acknowledged as a pioneer in group theory and practice. His book, Experiences in Groups (1), in which he wittily recounts his baffling early experiences in group therapy and attempts at theoretical explanations, has become a classic, frequently cited alongside Freud's (2) paper on group psychology. He is the first to have approached the group as a whole and to have called attention to the central role of pre-Oedipal dynamics in the unconscious life of groups. Moreover, with his phenomenological descriptions of the “basic assumptions,” he provided a tool for categorizing the central events of group life that many group workers continue to find indispensable. In what sense does this work have to be “recovered”?

To be sure, his actual practice-what we might loosely call his method-has come under considerable fire. For him, the term group therapy referred not to therapy that takes place in the context of the group but to therapy that is directed at the group as a whole, therapy that attempts to make a poorly functioning group more effective. Thus he typically directed his interpretations not at individual group members but at the group entity, and this direction was consistent with his fundamental attempt to establish contact with the emotional life of the group as a whole-to observe what was being referred to when group members said “we,” for example, how this group entity made attempts to establish a consistent relationship with him, and how individual members fit into and were used by this entity as well.

In so doing, he did not posit a new force or a different kind of psychic reality manifesting itself in group life. Following Freud's disavowal of the need to posit a group or herd instinct, he sought to understand behavior in groups as expressions of collective, shared, or parallel fantasies, and in so doing, he took account of individual behavior only insofar as it was expressive of developments in the group as a whole. That is to say, if a group